Family Ties
by Fyrie
Summary: Giles learns more about his family and Watcher-genes. (Note: the rating is sheerly for innuendo and Spike's potty mouth)


The door creaked as it opened, pulling the attention of both Giles and Anya away from the spell book they were poring over

The door creaked as it opened, pulling the attention of both Giles and Anya away from the spell book they were poring over.

"Ooh! A customer!" The former demon's face brightened.

The grey-haired woman in the doorway gave an undignified snort. She looked like any other grandmother, quite stout although reasonably tall, her hair long and pulled back in a bun, her face jolly and filled with a wide, toothy grin.

Anya glanced at Giles for aid. No customer normally snorted at her. The Watcher seemed oblivious to the girl, blinking at the older woman. One hand rose, pushed his glasses further up his nose, mouth opening and shutting soundlessly.

"There's me boy!" Bustling forward, spreading ring-bedecked hands, the little old woman's grin widened. Rounding the desk, she pushed Anya aside, grabbing the Watcher and planting a wet, loud kiss on each cheek.

Anya tapped her smartly on the shoulder. "Hey, you. You're not allowed on this side of the desk. You don't work here."

The woman responded by giving the half-surprised, half-amused girl the finger. "Bugger off and dust the shelves or something." She drawled impatiently, waving the former demon away as Giles seemed to blink himself out of his stupor.

"Bloody hell!" He managed to gasp, throwing his arms around the woman, his grin matching hers. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Is that anyway to greet me?" She pulled back, reaching up to tap him firmly on the nose. "I thought little William would have bashed proper manners and politeness into you with a stick if he'd had to."

Anya looked from one to the other. "Giles?"

"No, she's not an orgasm friend, Anya." He chuckled. The old lady turned to eye the former demon curiously. "This is my aunt, Mathilda Baxter." He bent to kiss her on the forehead. "And no, dad didn't teach me any manners. I was the rebel, remember."

"Ah yes." Mathilda Baxter nodded gravely. "Ripper. How could I forget?"

Shrugging, her nephew smirked. "Senility?"

"Bollocks to that!" Reaching up to cuff him across the head, she shot a glare at him. "Now, are you going to get me a drink before I shrivel up and dry out? Its like the bloody inferno out there and I need a drink."

"Tea?"

"Sod off! Do I look like your father?" There was a pause. "Actually, don't answer that. Do I *drink* like your father? I bloody well think not. I want alcohol. Preferably liquor, but if not, nice cold beer will do."

The Watcher raised a hand tentatively. "What about your medication?"

"Sod the doctors." She replied succintly, peering under the counter, giving a gleeful shout as her eyes fell on his bottle of Laphroaig. "I've reached eighty years old without them. Why should I give a damn about them now?"

"Are you sure she's related to you, Giles?" Anya eyed the woman skeptically. The woman flashed a grin, her teeth all her own. 

Tugging the oversized cork out of the bottle with said teeth, she turned to the former demon and – with an accuracy born of painstaking practise – spat it, to hit the startled girl right between the eyes.

"I'm sure." Giles chuckled, taking his aunt by the arm. "Would you mind watching the shop, while I get the old bat setled somewhere, so I can find out why on earth she's decided to come and stick her nosy beak in my business again."

The woman chuckled, downed a mouthful of the amber-orange liquid. "To see if you've get any nice, young men I can coerce into my bed." She winked and something in the look in the woman's blue eyes said she wasn't joking. 

It was only after both of them had gone into the store room that Anya realised something. "She doesn't have a beak!"

*

Elbows propped on his knees, Giles shook his head with a sigh. "I can't come back. I've got too many responsibilities here."

"Mum knew you'd say that." Mathilda remarked, eyeing her drink , a broad smile on her weather-beaten face. "How many kids have you got yourself now? Five? Six? And none of them even your real sprogs. You're a soft touch, Roo."

Giles shot an indignant look at her. "They're bloody marvellous kids." He muttered, accepting her offer of his whisky. 

"Let me see if I remember..." Rolling her cool glass over her forehead, Mathilda frowned thoughtfully. "There's Buffy, Slayer. Dawn, sister of Slayer. Alexander, the well-meaning but rather dopey one. Willow the witch. And that one out front – the former vengeance demon, unless I'm mistaken?"

"That's them." He acknowledged ruefully. "Although...there are a couple more who seem to have joined the family too." His aunt raised an eyebrow. "Tara, Willow's lover and another witch. Then, and I don't believe I'm admitting this, Spike. A bloody vampire."

"That's William the Bloody, isn't it?" Giles nodded once, in assent. "You know, me and mum ran into him at Woodstock. About yay-big?" She gestured with her hand. Giles nodded again. "Skinny, bleached hair, blue eyes, killer cheekbones..."

Burying his head in his hands, Giles' voice was muffled. "Don't tell me that either of you shagged him, please. I couldn't deal with that, Aunt Mat." His Aunt chuckled. "Oh God...you did, didn't you?"

Seeming to contemplate her drink, Mathilda's wrinkled lips rose in a small smirk, eyes dancing. "Well, he was there...we were there. We were armed. He was unarmed. What else could we have done with him?"

"Bloody Hell..."

Her guffaw made him lift his head. "Bloody hell to you too, Roo!" She was practically rocking with laughter. "What do you take me and your grandmother for? You think we'd just shag the nearest good-looking bloke...actually, scratch that. You think we'd shag the nearest good-looking undead blok...er...forget that too..."

"So you didn't...?"

His Aunt shrugged. "He got stoned out of his mind and ended up watching his hand moving, which was bloody cute. He looked like a little kid who had just found some new toy." Winking, she remarked. "If he had been sober and sane...who knows?"

"You probably would have staked him."

"Yeah, probably." Downing her drink, she laid the glass aside, shrugged dismissively. "Mum was a Watcher after all. But..." She chuckled. "If we hadn't seen the bloody vampire with wings and a halo, we would have staked him there and then. Going on a vampire hunt when you've been slipped something...its just bloody hilarious."

"Unless you get yourself killed." Giles muttered.

"And there speaks the true Watcher. Look, Roo. I'm alive. Your gran's alive. We went to Woodstock, got high, shagged the brains out of any guy stoned enough to touch two old bats and lived to tell the tale." She pulled a mock-innocent face. "Aren't you proud?"

Reluctantly chuckling, the Watcher sighed. "I'm just trying to imagine how Grandfather ever got involved with Nana Baxter. They don't seem like the kind of couple who would have talked, let alone got married and have two kids."

"They met in a strip club in the war." 

Giles choked on a mouthful of whisky. "Excuse me?"

"You really want to know?" The Watcher nodded in disbelief. "You remember that when you rebelled, you went off and raised some demons?" Giles pulled a face. "Well, mum hated the training, so she was a stripper for fun, in her free time."

Shaking his head in despair, the Englishman groaned. "And I wondered why grandad would never talk about her."

"It gets better." His Aunt's smirk was one of pure glee. "Daddy was tracking a demon for the Council and accidentally stumbled into the club, just as mum was getting down to her birthday suit. They saw each other and mum knew she was up shit creek without a paddle. Daddy could get away with it, because he had followed a demon, but mummy... not so lucky."

"Why am I of the opinion that this only gets worse?"

She reached over and patted him on the head. "Because you're a smart boy. Anyway, mum decided she would have to do something scanadalous to him that daddy would be ashamed to admit to, so she dragged him into the dressing room and seduced him, forty-two-year-old virgin that he was."

"And they fell in love?"

"Hell no! Mum found out she was up the duff and blackmailed daddy into marrying her." She chuckled, swilled her drink. "And they say that reputation means nothing. There was never any love involved. Daddy didn't want the reputation and mummy didn't want to be a single mother being paid a strippers wage. It was a compromise."

"They never divorced though."

"True." Settling back in her seat, Mathilda smiled widely. "They did separated six months after your father and I were born. Daddy got the first born son he wanted, minus the hassle of a wife and mum got the freedom to skip the country and travel the world. Taking me with her."

Giles shook his head in a combination of disbelief and amusement. "Why didn't either of you think to tell me this before? Haven't you heard of a bloody telephone? Or a letter? A letter would have worked too..."

"It was the kind of thing we thought your father's side of the family would try and hide. That's why we waited until your dear old daddy kicked the bucket." He opened his mouth to speak. "I know, I know, five years ago. Not my fault. We got back to England and you'd just come out here. All a matter of bad timing and we wanted to tell you face to face."

"You waited all this time to tell me that grandfather met nana in a strip club? Do you think I would have given a damn?"

A strange look crossed his Aunt's features. "There's more." She remarked. "And that includes the little bitty fact that only the ladies in your family know. Not including your dear old mum. You aren't really a Giles."

"Um...are you sure it was a bad idea to stop taking your meds, Aunt Mat?"

Dipping her hand into her Mary-Poppins-like bag, his Aunt said nothing. Holding out an old journal, she gestured for him to take it. The leather edges were worn, frayed, suggesting that it was as old as some of his collection.

"What's this?"

"Your great-grandmother's journal." She said, voice quiet. Reverent. "Read it carefully, Roo. I think you'll find it...interesting."

Trying to word a question, Giles heard a shrill cry from the front of the shop. "Giles! Giles! The till attacked me!"

"Don't go anywhere." He cautioned his aunt, then ducked through the curtain to see what all the fuss was about, leaving the elderly woman sitting in the chair, greedily eyeing the halffinished bottle of whisky.

*

"Giles, did you know there's an old lady asleep out back?" Xander peered back through the curtains. Giles nodded, waved dismissively. For once, the shop was bursting to the seams, a supernatural fair in town.

"That's not an orgasm friend." Anya chimed in helpfully. "She's related to him and she spat a bottle cap and it hit me in the face." She paused, grinned. "I liked her. She was funny. She sounded just like Spike."

The brunette youth blinked. "She sounds like Spike and spat a bottle cap at you and you *like* her? An, I don't get your logic."

"She's my Aunt, Xander." Pushing passed Anya to get to the till, Giles hastily raked out the correct amount of change. "Since my grandmother couldn't come and visit, my aunt decided she was the next best thing."

Again, the brunette blinked. "You have a grandmother?" The Englishman raised an eyebrow. "I mean one that's alive?"

"She just settled down a few years ago. After two years as a Watcher and sixty-five years of touring the World, I think it was justified." Giles handed the gift-wrapped jar of newt's eyes to the customer. "She felt that to be travelling in her late nineties was a bit ridiculous, since the police wouldn't let her drive anymore."

Anya's brow wrinkled in thought. "You didn't tell us that your grandmother was a Watcher, Giles." She remarked.

"You didn't ask." He gave the former demon a small smile, grateful that the crowds were finally beginning to disperse. Following the last of the customers to the door, he turned the open sign to closed and shut the door.

"What happened to her Slayer?"

"You telling them about Cassie and mum?" A sleepy maternal sounding voice spoke from the doorway. Mathilda pushed through the dark velvety drapes, rubbing her blue eyes with a fist, the other clutching a near empty whisky bottle.

Giles nodded. "Cassie died, didn't she?"

"Fifty-seven years ago, on her eighteenth birthday." The Watcher's Aunt confirmed. "Bloody Council tests. It broke mum's heart. I think she'd probably have done herself in, if it hadn't been for me. Tying her up for six months so she couldn't kill herself might have been extreme, but it worked a treat."

Xander eyed the woman. "Nice to see that sanity as well as that Watcher thing runs in your family, G-Man."

"Who wants sanity?" The woman took a healthy swig from the bottle. "Its useless and bloody depressing too." She let her eyes wander the brunette youth's body pensively. "You're clearly insane. I never wore anything like that. Even when I was desperate, I would go stark-bollocking-naked rather than wearing that."

Anya stifled a giggle. Xander looked half-hurt, half-bewildered. "Are you sure she's related to you, Giles?"

"Sadly, its true." He carefully steered the older woman to one of the stools, helped her sit straight. A surprised look crossed her face when she hiccuped. "Aunt Mat, just how much more have you drunk?"

The woman shrugged, smiled contentedly. "Dunno." She replied, handing him the bottle. "But that's cheap, watered-down stuff. Nowhere near as strong as I like it." She dug through her pockets, frowned. "Any of you lot got a fag on you?"

"Sorry...I don't smoke." 

"That's all very commendable, young man." She nodded approvingly. "But, its damn irritating when I want to inhale some burning nicotine and coat my lungs in a fresh coat of thick and disgusting tar."

"Spike smokes." Anya suggested with a shrug. "He should be here soon. He likes to hang around here and annoy us all."

A small smile flitted across Mathilda's features. "I think I can wait until he shows face. I wonder if he'll still remember me." She sighed reminiscently. "Its been a long time. An awfully long time."

"And now, we start to worry." Xander quipped. "When Giles Aunt knows Spike."

*

Buffy and Spike could be heard before they were seen, their bickering at record volumes as they entered the shop, the Slayer turning indignantly to her vampire companion. "Look, stalker-boy, just get off my back."

"I was just trying to help."

"I don't need *your* help, Spike, and...Giles, are you aware there's an old lady sitting beside the counter?" Whoever she was, she looked like she was in her sixties and was brimming with life and laughter, blue eyes glinting mischievously.

"Cheeky cow." The old woman muttered in disgust. "I'm not bloody old...I might be mature. I might be wise in the ways of the world, but I'm not bloody old!"

"Who's the grumpy bint?" Spike inquired with apparent interest, prowling across the floor towards her. Blue eyes met blue, one age-spotted hand snagging the front of the vampire's shirt and jerking him forward, the other hand slipping deftly into his pocket and snatching his cigarettes. "Hoi!" 

Lighting one of the cigarettes, she tucked them back in his pocket, grinned at him. "Thanks, mate. Much appreciated." Clearly a practised pickpocket, he was surprised to realise that he had barely felt her hand enter his pocket.

"I don't like having my fags stolen, pet." Half-growling, his demon rippled to the surface. "Now, give it back."

Blowing a plume of smoke in the vampire's face, the old woman seemed to pause for thought, then smiled, an air of amusement in her smile. "No." She said politely. "Its my bloody fag. You stole my spliff and don't you go thinking that I've forgotten just cos I've got grey hair."

"Spliff?"

"You know, blonde really is your colour." She chuckled, grabbing the bottle of whisky off the counter and taking a swig. "Bloody hell, Spike, you're memory is worse than mine and you're only half a century older than me."

The vampire seemed to do a double-take, bending closer and staring at her. "You! Fucking hell! Its you! You bashed me across the head with a soddin' cross!"

"Well, you started it." She offered him the bottle, ignoring the incredulous stares of the younger generation. "You stole my shag and ate him. He had my spliff. If I hadn't been so bloody sure you were an angel with wings and a halo, I would have staked your sorry arse."

"Sorry about your spliff." The vampire accepted the drink, still staring at the women. "If it helps, whatever he was on made me fly for hours." She chuckled. "What the bloody hell are you doing in this dump anyway?"

She gestured to Giles. "Visiting family."

Spike choked, whisky spurting out his nose. Coughing, blinking tears from his eyes, he stared at her. "You're related to Rupert stake-up-his-arse Giles?"

"You think my nephew has a stake up his arse?" The woman started to laugh, looking over at Giles. "Ooh, bloody hell...my nephew...boring...stake up his arse...the only bloke to be threatened with being kicked out the bloody council six times in two years...priceless...mum'll love that..."

"Mum?"

"You must be Goldielo...er...Buffy." The old woman waggled her ring-stiff fingers at the Slayer, gave her a grin. "Nice to see one again." She paused, inhaled a drag from the cigarette. "Are you embarrassed by your family, Roo? You never seem to tell anyone about me or your grandmum unless we show up and humiliate you."

He shrugged, chuckled. "Do you blame me?"

"Not entirely." Her attention returned to the blonde vampire in front of her. "So you're harmless, eh? Bit of a come down, I bet. After all, nibbling on juicy pieces of flesh for a hundred and twenty something years...plus the human years...poetic justice really, innit?"

"I've still got booze, fags and birds." The vampire shrugged. "And one day, this chip'll be out, I'll get back to my family and we'll kill every one of you." He gave her a devilish grin. "In the nicest way possible."

Lifting the bottle, Mathilda grinned. "Here's to booze and fags...not birds though. Tried them once. Didn't like it much. All tongue and no knob. Bloody amateurs. I always missed that look on the blokes face when he..."

"Aunt Mat..."

"Hush up, Roo." She sent a grin her flushing nephew's way. "There are worse ways that family members can embarrass you." She clapped the bottle down, winked at the vampire. "I bet you know lotsa ways." A pensive look crossed her face. "Lots of ways."

"Giles...what are they talking about?" Buffy warily glanced at her Watcher, clearly bewildered.

"Me and the old bird bumped into each other at Woodstock." Spike shook his head with a low laugh. Somehow, he'd always imagined the plucky middle-aged chit to have died soon after, but here she was, stealing fags from him. "I was hungry and she had a juicy young thing shagging her."

Flicking the ash from her cigarette at the vampire, Mathilda put in. "Bloody pillock ripped the bloke off me and ate him. I was pissed to high heaven and bashed him across the noggin with my cross. My bloody prick of a shagmate had slipped me something though. I saw wings coming out Spike boy's shoulders and I was absolutely positive I was seeing an angel."

"Whatever he gave her, he'd had the same thing. My hand looked bloody marvellous for hours. Dunno what it was, but holy shit...I couldn't stop watching it." Spike grinned wryly. "Dru was terrified cos I was acting like she normally did."

Both vampire and Watcher's Aunt started to laugh, both shaking their heads. "I can't get passed the image of you as a bloody angel...all wings and halo and everything..."

"That's the only reason you didn't stake me? Hell...I woulda killed you if my hand wasn't such a loada weird colours..."

Giles looked from his aunt to the vampire, shuddered. "You realise this is all rather disturbing, don't you? I mean, the idea of you shagging a doped up hippie is bad enough, but you and him fighting when you were both doped up..."

"Did I mention that we were naked?" Mathilda looked to Spike. "We were naked, weren't we? Or were you wearing a loincloth?"

"I was not wearing a bloody loincloth!"

"You were buck naked then?" The woman paused, frowned. "Yep! I rememeber! We were all in the sleeping patch of one of the fields and everyone was getting it on. You'd just been shagging a girl two rows down and hadn't bothered covering that lily arse of yours." She smirked. "I could see it bobbing up and down when you were going at it."

If it was possible, the vampire flushed. Mathilda seemed oblivious, chuckling to herself.

"It must be a family thing." She remarked, finally overcoming her fit of the giggles. "We all have a knack for ending up naked at the bloody weirdest times. Him and me in a field surrounded by hippies, Roo in the middle of Oxford Street on New Year's Day...and oops!" She grinned. "I probably shouldn't have said that..."

"Aunt Mat, we are going away...now..." Face crimson, Giles hurried to try and drag her from the room, before she embarrassed him any more than she already had.

She pouted, let herself be steered to her feet. "I have the photographic evidence to prove it though!" She added as an afterthought. "Only of Roo though. Mum kept the Woodstock photos as blackmail material...or porn...can never remember which..."

"Xander, can you take my Aunt back to my apartment...please?" The older lady leered at the youth, who flushed crimson. "Take her there, make sure she's comfortable...I'll be back soon, I promise."

Nodding, the brunette led the woman out of the shop, his ears tipped a brilliant scarlet. The remaining people turned to Giles, amusement and astonishment etched on their features. 

"*That* is a member of *your* family?" Willow managed to voice the same question that both Xander and Anya had asked. "But she's so...so..." Trailing off helplessly, she looked to her friends for aid. "Not-English..."

"She's really English, pet." Leaning against the counter, Spike lit a cigarette, chuckled. "The majority of English people are like that, not ponces like the Council and the Watchers." He blew out a stream of smoke. "She's a gem, a bloody gem."

"You have no idea how much it means to me to hear you say so." Giles muttered under his breath, his face still an unusual shade of crimson. "Nana Baxter was just as bad...like me, before I..." He struggled for the word. "Matured."

Buffy sniggered. "You mean they both acted like you did, when you had the Band Candy?"

"Well...to be honest, they were worse. The family all but disowned them..." He shrugged, spread his hands. "They were the only people in the family who didn't seem too angry about the whole Eygon situation."

Spike grinned. "You know, Watcher, suddenly you're starting to sound a lot more interesting." He remarked with a wink. "Even reminds me of me, in a roundabout kind of a way, y'know."

"Dear God, I hope not!"

"Um...can I a-ask a question?" All eyes turned to Tara. "Sh-should we be worried about Xander on his-his-his own with her?"

A look of horror crossed Giles' face. "Bloody hell...what have I done?" Racing for the door, he was in time to see Xander drive passed in his car, his Aunt waving at him, a devilish grin on her innocent-looking face.

"You want me to go and watch the old bint, mate?" Spike's voice was close to his ear. "I wouldn't mind having someone almost as old as me to chat with. It'll make a bloody change after Harm."

Although he didn't register the moment he nodded, the Watcher mutely agreed. As the vampire moved passd him, he lid a hand on the blonde's shoulder. "Don't wind her up or piss her off, though. I don't want to spend days getting dust out of the carpet."

"Is that...concern? For me?"

"No, Spike. It's concern for my new and rather expensive Persian rug."

*

Distractedly picking up the phone, Giles looked from the journal he had spent the last two hours reading and tiredly said. "Hello?"

"Giles, mate, you gotta help me!"

"Spike? What is it? Is Aunt Mat all…"

"She's bloody marvellous…get off my leg you dozy cow!" There was the sound of something falling, a loud crash and a yell of pain from the vampire. Then, there was a burst of laughter and a new voice rang down the phone.

"Hello, my boy!"

Giles stifled a chuckle. "What are you up to, Aunt Mat?"

His aunt seemed to be arguing with the vampire on the other end of the line. "We were playing poker." She confided in hushed tones. "I won and the bloody-minded pillock refused to keep his end of the bargain."

"I'm not taking my bloody clothes off! You cheated! You palmed the soddin' ace!"

"Would I?" The mock-innocence in his aunt's voice drew a fond laugh from the Watcher. "But, while I'm on the line, Roo, pet, have you been reading the journal? I think it would be better if you got on with it…and sod off or I'll stake you!"

Waiting until the light-hearted rgument on the other end of the line had ceased, Giles said. "I'm actually reading it now. Are you absolutely certain that it's accurate? I can understand the Watcher gene coming from that…Anderson person, but I don't know…great grandmother…" 

"Was in a miserable marriage and needed someone to keep her company." There was the sound of an open hand connecting with bare flesh. "Keep reading. Take your time. I'm going to beat this miserable vampire at cards until he has nothing to lose but his clothes."

"Shouldn't take to long then." He chuckled drly, turning the yellowing pages of the aging journal carefully. "I'll be sure to come back to the apartment tonight, Aunt Mat. Just remember not to dust him, all right?"

She chuckled. "Yes sir." There was a click as she hung the phone up. He couldn't mask a small smile, turning his attention back to the book.

*

Shaking his head in disbelief, Giles hurried to the back room of the shop, lifting two of his Watcher's Journals down from the high shelves. Laying them alongside his descendant's journal, he flipped through the pages as fast as he dared.

"Anderson…Anderson…Anderson…" running his fingers down the lines of script, a frown rippled his brow. "Anderson." Lifting the ancient diary of his great grandmother, he placed it on the main book, looking over the profile of the young Watcher.

His eyes moved over the neatly-written words of his ancscestor. Clearly lonely, hurt and lost, she had turned to the first person who had offered her something different, something gentle and tender and passionate.

It seemed unbelievable that only his grandmother, a cocky West End girl who had married into the family, and her equally insane daughter were the only ones who knew the truth, but looking at the perspectives of the family, the reputation of the Giles name, he could understand it.

Re-reading the paragraphs about the young Watcher in both the journals and the diary, he shook his head in a combination of disbelief and complete bewilderment.

Just when he thought it was safe to look up his family tree…

*

"Your turn."

"No, its bloody not!"

Blue eyes crinkled with laughter. "I'm old and feeble. You go and get me some bloody booze or I tell Roo to kick your arse."

"That's not bloody fair!"

She gave him a smug grin. "I know. That's what makes it so much fun."

Neither paid any heed when the door opened, neither risking taking their eyes off the other's hands for fear of cheating that would imminently happen. Neith looked up as Giles moved behind the couch and looked down at them.

Then he started to read.

"And when the effulgent glow of gazelle-like breasts lollop over the silken mounds…"

One head snapped up.

Giles' mouth quirked up in an uncalled for smirk. "Mister William Anderson, I presume?"

"Oh shit…" Spike's cards spilled from is hands, a visible twitch appearing in his left eye. "Oh, shit with a cherry on top…"

Mathilda chuckled. "What's got you so worked up, William?" She asked, her blue eyes dancing with ageless laughter. "Is it your dire efforts at poetry? Or that we know you're a Watcher." She paused. "Or that you're related to us?"

"Whu…?" What semblance of comprehensionn the vampire had left was rapidly slipping away from him.

"You're my granddaddy!" Mathilda exclaimed, clapping her hands together, rings and bracelets clinking loudly. Blue eyes identical to her own blinked stupidly at her. "Good God, William, you can't be that thick!"

"But I'm a bloody vampire…" Shaking his head, he looked from Watcher to Aunt desperately. "I can't have soddin' kids! Its impossible!"

Giles wagged a reprimanding finger at the stunned vampire, still unable to conceal the broad smirk on his face. "But you were human, once, William." He reminded the blonde. "You were human and were seduced by…Annette Giles. Unfortunately, you were…" He cleared his throat loudly. "Killed by cutthroats in London, before she could tell you she was carrying your child."

Sagging back against the chair, the vampire seemed to have paled. "Holy shit…I've got a bloody Watcher as my great-sodding-grandson…"

"You know, Spike." Giles couldn't help adding. "If you hadn't knocked up my great grandmum with your Watcher genes, then I wouldn't have been Buffy's Watcher and she wouldn't have been half as good a Slayer with a normal, stick-to-the-rules Watcher and you would have probably kicked her arse…"

"Bloody hell…" The vampire whimpered. "I swear, my whole bloody unlife's a joke…"

His granddaughter and great-grandson echanged glances and couldn't stifle a shared laugh. 

"I'd agree with that, Spike." Mathilda said lightly, reaching over to squeeze the unfortnate vampire's cool hand. "But, while she's still alive, how about coming over to England to meet your daughter-in-law."

"Just a bloody joke. All just a bloody joke…"


End file.
